Dan Williams, who is competing as Parthenon on the competitive reality series Who Wants To Be A Superhero?, talks about his character and the message he wants to send out to the viewers.

In an interview with AfterElton, he delves deeper into the origin of his character, an archaeologist whose powers arise from his “Armaguard,” an ancient bracelet he found on a dig.

“Basically, how he got his powers is he was an archaeologist. And he was on a dig and — the shortened version is there was an earthquake and he found a secret chamber and inside of it was a bracelet. The bracelet, when he put it on and when he touches it, morphs into this big gauntlet thing that he wears on his wrist. It gives him a little bit of super powers — invulnerability, flight and super-strength. And then there are Atlantean gemstones and when you put a little gemstone into each little slot on the gauntlet, it gives you another super-power. Right now he has three different gemstones — the moonstone, which gives him illusion powers, the echo emerald, which gives him sonic powers, and the Eye of Apollo diamond that gives him a protective shell,” Williams explained.

“The inspiration for the character came about from the gauntlet, that was my original idea for it. I knew I wanted something to wear around my wrist and I knew I wanted it to be kind of interchangeable where it's continuously growing. And that's how I came up with the jewels and putting them in it — almost like The Mandarin's rings,” he added.

In addition to the roots of Parthenon, he also explores the nature of his character. Williams, who is openly gay, aspires to become a role model since there aren't many gay superheroes that kids could look up to these days.

“As a kid, I used to look up to the normal superheroes, that's all you had to look up to. Some of my favorite gay superheroes come from when I got a little bit older,” he said.

“I think ‘Justice for all' and ‘It doesn't really matter' is the quote I gave them. I didn't want to be known as ‘the gay superhero.' I wanted to be known as the superhero who is gay, because I think there's actually a big difference. I didn't want it to be the focus of it, like ‘Oh, he's the gay one, he's the gay one.' I'd rather be like ‘Hey, look at the superhero I am' and ‘Oh, by the way, I just happen to be gay.' I kinda want to stress more than that sort of thing,” he revealed.

Catch Parthenon on Who Wants To Be A Superhero? every Thursday at 9/8c on SciFi.